Beneath the Bells of Kharbranth
by FeatherWriter
Summary: Universe Alteration (Divergence) where instead of joining the army, Kaladin goes to Kharbranth to train as a surgeon. After years of hard work, his talent for healing earns him a promotion. But there are secrets in Kharbranth, the likes of which he could never have imagined. **WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE WAY OF KINGS**


Kaladin walked through the quiet halls of the Conclave, occasionally glancing down at the small piece of paper in his hand. He had been inside Kharbranth's great, labyrinthine palace a few times during his years training as a surgeon, but he had never been this deep. The hastily sketched map at the bottom of the page he'd been given had been helpful at first, but without windows or markings on the halls, he'd gotten turned around and there wasn't a master-servant to be found.

There was, however, a girl walking away from him a short distance down the hall. Though she was too far for him to see her face, he knew she was a lighteyes from the expensive cut of her dress. He hated to bother her, but she looked like she knew her way around this part of the Conclave, and if he didn't find this place soon, he would be late.

"Please excuse me, Brightness," he called, quickening his step to catch up to her. "But I wonder if you might be able to help me? I think I might be lost." He remembered when he would have been nervous talking to a lighteyes of her rank. But he was of the second nahn, and a trained surgeon now. He was used to talking to lighteyes now.

She turned back towards him, and he could see that she carried some kind of notebook clutched by her safehand. "Oh, of course," she said, her accent revealing her Veden heritage almost as much as her bright red hair. "Where is it you are trying to go?"

Kaladin held out his sketched map, pointing at the glyph marking his destination. "Here, Brightness. I'm sorry to bother you, but I've never been in this part of the Conclave."

"It's not a problem." She took the paper with her freehand. "I can't tell you how often I get turned around back here. Now, I don't think I've ever been to the room you're looking for, but it's not too far. We're right here—" she pointed to a spot a few hallways away from the glyph "—so it shouldn't be much further."

He nodded, taking the paper back from her. "Thank you, Brightness."

"Davar," she finished for him with a smile. "Shallan Davar. And I'm happy to help. Congratulations on your promotion, Surgeon Kaladin." With that, she turned and began walking away.

He started at her use of his name, then realized that she'd probably just read it off the page. It still seemed strange to him that a women could know his name just by seeing symbols on a page. He felt a little like a brightlord, with a glyph pair representing a surname. But as far as he could tell, writing didn't work like glyphs at all. And this Shallan had read the message so quickly, even as she was figuring out the map. Women's script was a strange thing indeed.

With Brightness Davar's directions, it didn't take him long to find his destination. The small door looked simple enough, though a bored-looking guard stood outside, barring entrance. As Kaladin approached, he held out a hand. "Do you have business here?"

Kaladin nodded, proffering the paper. The guard inspected the glyphs at the bottom, then knocked on the door. A scribe stuck her head out a moment later. "Yes?"

"Got a newcomer. He's got papers."

"Let me see that," she said, taking it. After a moment, she looked up. "And you are?"

"Kaladin, a surgeon of the second nahn."

The scribe nodded once, like this was the correct answer. She held the door open wider. "If you would please follow me."

She led him through a small, narrow staircase, cut deep into the Conclave rock. Finally, at the bottom, the stairs opened up into a large room. There were lamps filled with diamond spheres hanging throughout the room, and everything was painted or bleached a clean, sterile white. Inside were rows and rows of beds, many occupied by people of all kinds. Men and women dressed in white robes much like the one Kaladin was wearing moved through the hall, working calmly and efficiently. A hospital? Inside the Conclave? He had been studying in Kharbranth for years now and he had never heard of such a place.

They had barely entered the room when they were intercepted by one of the lighteyed surgeons on the floor. Though he addressed the scribe, he inspected Kaladin closely. "Who is this?"

"A new transfer," the woman said. "Kaladin, second nahn." Kaladin bowed politely as he was introduced.

The surgeon seemed puzzled, but he dismissed the scribe, taking Kaladin's papers from her before she left. Then he motioned for Kaladin to follow him. "I am Brightlord Morilan, and I oversee many of the surgeons down here. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Kaladin looked out over the room as they walked. "I didn't know that there was a hospital inside the Conclave," he finally said.

Morilan nodded, not surprised. "This is His Majesty's private hospital, you could say. And he is very… selective about those he chooses to bring here. For the protection of these patients, this room remains secret." He glanced at Kaladin, the perplexed look returning to his face. "You are one of only a few who are allowed to know of its existence. I am… somewhat surprised that they would transfer someone so young here, and a darkeyes at that. I've heard rumors of the incredibly lucky darkeyed surgeon. The man who saves those past help, and sees solutions where others have given up. To be transferred here, I must believe that they are true."

Kaladin looked down, slightly embarrassed. He knew some of the men he'd worked with called him "lucky," but he'd had no idea their superstitions were traveling so far. "With all due respect, brightlord, I'm not lucky, just fortunate enough to be well-trained. My father was a surgeon and he taught me everything he knew before I ever set foot in Kharbranth. And successes of mine are due to his training."

Morilan raised an eyebrow at that. "Don't sell yourself too short. Many others train before coming here. Few of them make it as far as you have. Take some credit for your accomplishments. False humility does little more than make you seem weak."

Kaladin just nodded. He turned to watch as a man tended to one of the patients. The girl in the bed was darkeyed and only a few years older than Kaladin, and her hair was cropped much shorter than most women's. A surgeon was gently pressing a knife to her freehand wrist, letting blood into a wide flat dish. A scribe dressed in white stood nearby, holding a board that Kaladin assumed contained notes on the patient's condition and treatment.

At first glance, everything seemed normal, but Kaladin quickly realized that something was wrong. The girl's face was wan and pale, her eyes barely open as she drifted on the edge of consciousness. There was almost no color in her skin and she was covered in a light sheen of sweat.

"Stop that bleeding," Kaladin cried, moving to stop the surgeon. "Can't you see she's on the verge of exsanguination? If you don't bind that cut quickly, she's going to die!" Before he'd taken a step, Brightlord Morilan grabbed his arm. Kaladin turned back in surprise. "What are you doing? We need to stop him!"

The lighteyed man frowned slightly. "Hmm, so no one told you, then?" He asked quietly, seeming surprised.

Kaladin tried to pull his arm away, but Morilan held him fast. "What are you talking about? Let go of me! She's dying!"

"I'm so sorry," Morilan said calmly. "I thought you knew…"

Kaladin was about to use force to free himself, but before he could, the girl screamed. The sound chilled him and he turned back to watch her. Her eyes were wide open now and she twisted and writhed, as if fighting bonds that were not there. Her tossing flung small drops of blood from her wrist across the once-unmarred whiteness of her robe and sheets. The surgeon stepped back, setting the dish on the bedside table, as the scribe leaned forward, pen held expectantly.

Suddenly, her back arched and she yelled frantically: "The wind is my breath and the rains are my blood! The storm's howling cannot deafen the tempest raging within! I cannot hold it in! It longs for destruction and I can no longer stop it!" As the last words left her lips, she fell back into the bed limply. Moments later, she stopped breathing entirely.

"She's gone," Kaladin said, shocked. The surgeon looked toward him for the first time, and Kaladin could see that there was no guilt or remorse in the man's features. If anything, he looked satisfied with his work. Kaladin felt his cheeks grow hot with anger. "How could you be so incompetent?" he yelled at the man. "Letting a patient die during something as simple as a bloodletting? You ought to be stripped of your qualifications, if not put on trial for outright murder!"

The surgeon frowned slightly, glancing at Brightlord Morilan. "Is he supposed to be down here?"

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it," Morilan said. He turned back to Kaladin and gently started pulling him away from the scene. "Why don't you come with me… Kaladin, was it? I'll explain as we walk. I'm sorry, I forget that they don't always inform newcomers what this hospital does."

Kaladin let himself be pulled along. He was still trying to process the horrible scene he'd just witnessed. "What in Damnation is that supposed to mean?"

"What you saw was a routine procedure here," Morilan said calmly.

"Those were death throes!" Kaladin spat. "That girl is dead now because of that man's carelessness!"

"Quite the contrary. The surgeon performed his task carefully and with precision. Everything went exactly as planned."

Kaladin didn't know how to respond to that. Finally, he managed to speak again. "Are you saying that the surgeon was… trying to kill his patient?"

Morilan nodded. "The patients who come here are those beyond help, for whom death is the only answer. We give them a calm and controlled environment in which to do so, where trained surgeons can oversee and carry out the procedure."

Kaladin walked silently as he tried to understand the words. Euthanasia? He had never thought of it as a solution to be considered seriously. Even in a situation where there was no hope of recovery, he always believed that each person should live as long as possible. Even "hopeless" cases recovered sometimes; the ways of the Almighty were unknowable. Deliberately killing a patient seemed like giving up, and there was something inside him that despised the very idea. The fact that there was an entire hospital dedicated to the practice made him nothing short of sick.

"Aren't there…" he found himself saying quietly. "I mean, if death truly was the only option, aren't there better ways to do it? A poison that would kill painlessly? Something that would just put the patient to sleep?"

"Such things exist, yes, but the patient must be conscious as they die. Putting them to sleep would render them useless."

Kaladin stopped. "What? 'Useless'? What sort of 'use' could the deaths of these people serve?"

"You've worked amongst the dying for years now. They see something at the end, and whatever that something may be, we have only their words to help us prepare for it. Our scribes take down every sample that is heard in this place, just like that girl you just saw, and they study them, trying to decipher their meaning. To be sure that they are able to speak, we keep all patients conscious as they die. The bloodletting allows us to kill slowly enough that last words are possible."

The sickened feeling he had felt earlier returned to Kaladin with full force. "You mean to say, you're killing them," he said, horrified. "Killing these people just to hear what they might say! You're murderers! Every person who knows of this and isn't stopping it!"

Morilan pursed his lips, and he almost looked disappointed at Kaladin's reaction. "It seems you do not recognize the importance of what we do here. The knowledge we gain from these words could protect millions of people."

"You can't protect by killing," Kaladin snapped, his father's words coming to him immediately. Gone were the days when he'd dreamed of becoming a soldier and winning glory. As he was realizing more and more, his father had been right about almost everything he'd taught. Only now Kaladin could see how poisonous a worldview like that could be, and he was unspeakably grateful that he knew better than to believe in something so wicked. "If you think I'm going to have any part in this, you're wrong. I'll tell the king what you're doing, what is going on down here."

The brightlord shook his head gently. "Do you think we could operate a secret hospital beneath the Conclave of this scale without the king's express permission and support? This project was his idea and is carried out at his orders."

Kaladin felt a jolt. _Carried out at the king's orders? _It couldn't be true. He had seen King Taravangian only a few times, when the monarch would come to oversee some of the hospital work, but the man had always been so kind, whether he was speaking to the highest ranked surgeon or the lowliest patient confined to bed. Kaladin knew what the political schemers said about the king, that he was weak and frail, that he didn't have the intelligence to manage a political court, much less a small kingdom. Such a persona couldn't be an act. It wasn't possible.

"I don't believe you," Kaladin said. "If you think slander about the king will keep me from revealing this place, you're wrong."

"On the contrary," Morilan said. "I think speaking to the king would be an excellent idea. He is better at explaining that I am, and it's clear you have no intention of listening to my arguments further. You needn't wait long. He usually checks in here after the midday bells. Until that time, I think it would be best if you stayed outside this chamber. It is obvious that what we are doing here upsets you, and I cannot have you interfering." He waved to some guards standing by one of the beds. "You may go quietly, or I can find something to knock you out."

Kaladin considered resisting, but the guards looked trained, and he had no experience fighting. Besides, he had no doubt that the threat of being knocked out was real. He could see vials of anesthetizing liquids of all kinds throughout the lab. He didn't have much of a choice.

"Please escort this young man to the meeting room of His Majesty's planning chambers," Morilan instructed as the darkeyed guards took up positions on either side of Kaladin. "If he makes trouble, you have my permission to use force to keep him in line. Hopefully it will not come to that."

As his guards led him towards an unfamiliar set of doors, Kaladin's mind raced, trying to come up with some kind of plan. Behind him, another patient cried out as the death drew close, shouting haunting phrases in the otherwise quiet room. The shivers that ran down Kaladin's spine were much easier to bear than the crippling guilt he felt in leaving the room behind.

The meeting room was well furnished, but despite the luxury, Kaladin had a difficult time waiting. The guards were posted outside the only door to keep him from trying to leave, but inside, he was completely alone. What he'd seen haunted him, and his thoughts spun and twisted along the same tracks over and over again. By the time a knock came at the door, the only thing he was sure of was that he had to do something to try to stop these people.

He stood immediately out of habit as the king walked in. King Taravangian was dressed in thick elaborate robes, quite a contrast to Kaladin's simple white surgeon's smock. Taravangian's four guards fanned out through the room, taking places near the king and at the doorway. The watched Kaladin carefully.

"So you're the lucky surgeon I've heard so much about, are you?" The elderly king asked, his voice somewhat raspy. "I've been keeping an eye on you since your name was passed to me a few months ago. Kaladin, was it? You are incredibly skilled, young man."

The compliment surprised Kaladin so much that all of the things he had prepared to say drained from his mind like highstorm rains down an empty street. "I… yes, Your Majesty. I… I wasn't aware that you knew who I was."

The king laughed kindly. "Any man who saves as many patients as you do is bound to attract a kind of attention. Your work these past few years in Kharbranth is part of what led me to ask that you be transferred here, to the Conclave."

"You asked that I be brought here?" Kaladin asked.

"Of course. I want only the best for this facility," Taravangian said. "And I count you among that number."

Kaladin didn't know how to respond to such praise. The king continued before he found something to say.

"Unfortunately," the king said, his tone growing sad. "I hear that you had an unpleasant experience while touring this hospital for the first time."

The words snapped Kaladin back to what he'd wanted to say originally. The awful scene flashed through his head again, and he shuddered. "Your Majesty, the surgeons here, they're killing people. I saw it happen today. A young girl was bled out while everyone simply watched. One of the surgeons, a Brightlord Morilan, then tried to explain that such… procedures were what this facility was for. I… I cannot believe that this is true."

The king nodded in understanding, beginning to slowly pace through the room. "I can see why that might have upset you. Perhaps it would be better if I explained. What Brightlord Morilan said was partially true, but he may not have painted it very well. I'll see if I cannot shed some light on the situation. Walk with me, young man."

Something about the king's tone made it clear that the statement was not a request. He followed the king out of the room, flanked by bodyguards on all sides. They went up a staircase, away from where Kaladin had come from, until finally they came to a door. On the other side, the hallway opened into a balcony, overlooking the hidden hospital from above. While the clean smells of antiseptic and medicines were familiar to Kaladin, he could take no comfort from them here.

"Our purpose here is not to take lives, young man," Taravangian said, his voice surprisingly steady after climbing the staircase. "It is to save them. The world is changing and we are on the cusp of something terrible. The dying are given a glimpse at whatever it is, and their words are one of the only sources of information we have about it."

"So you'll murder them to get it?" Kaladin said, unable to keep his disgust and accusation from his voice.

"No," the king said. "There are scribes throughout all of my hospitals, listening carefully for those whose time on Roshar has come to an end. We do not kill these people, but we will not let their deaths be meaningless. Unfortunately, those who die naturally cannot always speak what they see, and there are not always enough of them.

"This hospital," he continued, sweeping an arm out over the open air, "is here to give us a more controlled environment to collect these samples. Our process is as humane as we can make it, and those we bring here are those who have no life left to live. They are the terminally ill, who would die despite all our efforts. They are the low and forgotten, the whores, thieves, and beggars who simply drain the resources of those who contribute to society."

"You mean some of these people aren't even dying?" Kaladin asked. He scanned the room and now that he was looking, he could see that many of those in the beds were dirty, but did not seem sick at all.

"Not dying, but living a life such as theirs is not really living at all." The king spoke so matter-of-factly, as though the things he said were obvious facts he were explaining to a child. "Out on the streets, their lives were meaningless. Here, in death, they are given a grand purpose. Their sacrifice here goes toward something grander than they ever could have hoped for on their own. Their words will protect the ones they leave behind. They are now a part of the salvation of all of humanity."

Kaladin stepped back from the railing, reeling. "Then it's true then. It's all true. You're murdering people. Killing them in the name of some presumed greater good."

Taravangian frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. "You cannot see the necessity of our work?"

"Your necessity," Kaladin spat, his voice growing louder as he spoke, "is nothing more than the excuse of a coward, scrambling for a way to justify the atrocities he commits! What you do here is an abomination, and I will not stand by and watch these helpless people be slaughtered for the sake of your twisted cause! So long as there is breath in my body, I will do everything in my power to bring this place down. I won't let you hurt another person again." The last words came out as a shout, and the hall below fell into silence as Kaladin's speech carried out over the open space.

The king was silent after the outburst for a long while. Finally, without looking up, he said quietly, "It saddens me to hear that. You have such talent, and it's a shame to waste it." Still looking down into the gallery, the king made a small hand gesture. Immediately, Kaladin felt the two guards grab him from behind.

"What are you doing?" he shouted. He tried to fight them, but they were stronger and better trained than he. His arms were pinned in moments, the men holding him fast.

Finally, the king turned to face him. "I had hoped that you would see reason and agree to help me in this, but I can see that you are set in your ways. This facility and its mission must remain a secret, and for that reason, I cannot allow you to leave."

Kaladin glared, feeling furious and helpless all at once. "So am to be a prisoner, simply because I didn't agree with your sadistic plan?"

Taravangian shook his head slightly. "I'm afraid you have seen too much already. I cannot risk even putting you in a prison, for you might reveal the things you have seen. I regret that you do not wish to work with us as we attempt to save this world. But one way or another, you will have a part in it."

He addressed the guards. "Please take young master Kaladin downstairs and inform the surgeons that he will not be assisting us. Tell them he is to be prepared for the treatment." Kaladin felt as though someone had submerged him in icy water as he realized what the king intended. He couldn't fight, he couldn't speak. He could barely even think.

Taravangian walked with a hobbled gait to stand before Kaladin, leaning close. "A storm is coming, young man. One which will shake far more than the bells of Kharbranth. Perhaps your words will be the ones which save us all."

Kaladin finally found his voice, screaming, as the guards dragged him from the room.


End file.
